While operating within a lifelong lyrical odyssey, his journey to build “roads of odes” (22), Sterling Plumpp checks in with his new volume Exile to apprise us of his progress, his latest exploration of “This magnolia memory,” which he states concisely, “is my DNA blossoming / in music” (3). In this poetic meditation on being---and on a poet’s being---this son of Mississippi reckons with the past as he remains, with pen in hand, his heart wrapped in deep blue, poised self-consciously on the edge of possibility. The style is unrelentingly be bop, flashing idea stitched to flashing idea, recalling the “sheets of sound” or glissandi associated with the improvisation of John Coltrane.
As in all Plumpp’s poetry over the last three or four decades, the wordplay is astounding. Epiphanies leap forward from ambiguities: “then same gospel Trane / hovering over / his flue of his / lyric fire / ornament tones / allow me / to solicit / rare indigo / down / Moses lyrics” (51). The notion of “gospel Trane” isn’t startling because numerous puns on Coltrane’s name exist in poetry. However, one might not catch on as quickly to the fact that “flue” forms a pair with its unstated homophone “flew” and that the combination linked to “indigo,” the color of wisdom and spirituality, suggests a sort of sacred flight. This is readily apparent when one realizes that “go” is not only the last syllable of “indigo” but is also the first word in the title of maybe the most popular spiritual of all: “Go Down, Moses.” Plumpp employs dozens of such constructions on his own flight through language and on his mission to keep readers alert.
My own attention strays, but this is because of how Plumpp indexes the universe of sound: “I am always beginning / I rewind gestures / of self in mind / and body and / soul Coleman / riffs into a / mystic / lyricism” (25). Collectively these lines function as a caesura, a real break. I felt compelled to stop reading to listen to Coleman Hawkins’ famous rendition of “Body and Soul.” This led to Billie Holiday’s version on which she is accompanied by Ben Webster. Naturally, I had to listen to Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown, then on to takes by Charlie Parker, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Coltrane (almost unavoidably), Dexter Gordon, and Sonny Rollins. Reading this kind of poetry with YouTube at your fingertips might not be the best idea. Or perhaps?
At any rate, I did get back to the book, slipped a bit when I read, “I locate reigns / of lyric vision / soaked Booker T’s / green onion / blues narrative” (37), then held to the page despite references to the likes of Bud Powell, Max Roach, Jimi Hendrix, Howlin Wolf, Bob Marley, Miriam Makeba (pata pata), and Miles Davis: “in metamorphosis / of riffs / I pursue up to / seven steps to heaven” (38). Moreover, I took notice of some intertextual references, for example the similarity to Aimé Césaire’s Return to the Native Land. Plumpp, whose reach is intentionally diasporic, writes, “at the end of small / hours blues is / an eloquent / romance with tragedy” (69). These lines, along with the poet’s overall tragicomic surrealist touch, recall the early-morning observations of the persona in Césaire’s poem.
Plumpp taxes readers with this latest effort. He characteristically does. However, the book is mesmerizing. Then it nags you when you finish it. You keep hearing it and know you’ll be back. Upon reviewing Plumpp’s volume Ornate with Smoke a quarter century ago, I wondered if the book should be placed among my book collection or record collection. No need to decide any longer. Plumpp’s volumes, augmented by Exile, now inhabit in my home a section of their own.